For Syria, Reliant on Russia for Weapons and Food, Old Bonds Run Deep

MOSCOW — As the violence in Syria worsened in recent days, amateur video showed the forces of President Bashar al-Assad rolling through the besieged city of Homs in vintage Soviet battle tanks.

A State Department image of a rocket launcher near Homs, Syria

Other photographs, including satellite images released by the State Department, showed deployments of Soviet-designed truck-mounted rocket launchers and two models of a self-propelled howitzer whose sweet-scented names in Russian, Gvozdika and Akatsiya (Carnation and Acacia), are no reflection of their fearsome firepower.

Regional political events have played a part. The Arab Spring and the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dissipated Russia’s once-powerful influence in the region, transforming the relationship into one of critical importance to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running for president and wants to expand Russia’s role as a global power-broker.

A Soviet-era tank used by the Syrian Army

But if the talk from Russia is heavy on respecting Syria’s autonomy, and avoiding the chaos that has engulfed Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt, arms exports have long anchored the relationship between Moscow and Damascus, including sales over the years of MIG fighter jets, attack helicopters and high-tech air defense systems.

In a sign of the intensifying diplomatic pressure on the Kremlin, Russian officials have visited Syria and called for a truce. And the deputy defense secretary, Anatoly Antonov, recently insisted that no Russian weapons were being used against the opposition forces in Syria — but he offered no basis for the assertion.